


Shadows

by YellingLizard



Category: Legend of the Five Rings, Shadow of the Cabal
Genre: Drabble, Gempukku, Gen, Samurai, Shiro isn't a given name but Shirou is because Kitsuki is extra, Usagi gets beat up by bayushi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 17:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13486728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellingLizard/pseuds/YellingLizard
Summary: A bunch of short bits about the Emerald trio (and Haru).





	1. Haru’s Twilight Bark

**Author's Note:**

> I researched about L5R and ancient japan but I know I made a bunch of mistakes. :/ Also the title is a joke about how every L5R podcast has the word "shadows" in it.

Hello!

This is a howl alert from Haru.

If there’s anyone around and listening, I’m looking for my human. He answers to both Kitsuki and Shiro. He’s shorter than other humans and has some dots on his face. He smells like tea a lot and likes to pretend he’s punching things. He calls it “training” but I don’t know what that means, if you do, please fill me in. He gives very good ear scratches but don’t let him pet your belly, he doesn’t understand how to do that. He likes to spend too much time with two other humans. One wears a red mask, she looks scary but she is a good belly patter, and a very tall human that smells like ash.

There was a scary person in our room and they made me very sleepy. When I woke up he was leaving. It’s getting late now and I’m scared that he’s gotten lost. He didn’t look much like himself when he left.

Please let me know if you see him.


	2. Between Bokken and Katana

Bayushi flicked the tip of her blade out and batted the bokken away from her leg. Pivoting, she stepped into Usagi’s space and snapped the wooden sword against his ribs with a satisfying smack before ducking under his long limbed spasm and stepping out to a meter of distance between them.

“I thought-” Usagi paused to put a hand on his   
bruised side and wheeze air past his teeth. “-this was training, not a   
beating.” He swore.

“You keep letting me under your guard Usagi. I’m   
not going to just sit here and let you hit me silly.” She began to circle him   
on instinct, waraji gritting against the gravel and dirt.

Usagi wiped sweat off his forehead, smearing   
loose hair over his face. Bayushi became aware of how dry her mask felt against   
her face, how slow her heartbeat was. How calm she was. How ready.

 

000

  
“You keep letting them into your guard Kuwa.”

  
Kuwa tried her best to keep her eyes dry as she   
cradled her bruised hand against her stomach, soft fingers already bright pink   
and swelling. She kept her stare on the tatami below her bare feet where she   
crouched, afraid that if she looked back up at her grandmother she would start   
crying.

  
The doujo was quiet for a moment before her   
grandmother spoke again. “Kuwa. Get up. If you want to be a bushi you need to   
pick up that bokken… or you can go join your siblings with the tutor.”

  
Kuwa petulantly bit her tongue, feeling more like   
a toddler then her full six winters. Her face squished into a frown and she   
flexed her hand before slipping it into the folds of her kimono. She picked up   
the bokken with her uninjured left hand, thumb poised on the edge of the hilt,   
tip pointed right at the master of the doujo, a weathered woman with a face   
made out of horizontal lines.

  
When she looked at her grandmother again she   
wondered if she had somehow misunderstood the lesson.

 

000

  
Usagi blocked her strike to his chest and brought   
his own down over Bayushi’s head. Her free hand flew up to support her bokken   
against Usagi’s blow, shoving it back, up and away. Her strike near his knee   
made him back pedal and his legs tangled as he went over backwards onto the   
ground with a spatter of gravel.

  
They were in the garden again, in the shadow of a   
small waterfall that sprayed mist lightly into the air. Usagi let it patter   
down on him for a moment on the ground before looking up at her with pleading   
eyes.

  
“What did I mess up this time?”

  
“Everything,” she said quickly, then relented.   
“Your footwork sucks, you keep ending up off balance. Stand up idiot, I can’t   
show you where to put your feet while you’re laying down.”

  
He grumbled something about sleeping on the   
ground before climbing up to his feet, dusting himself off and retying his   
tasuki, pulling his sleeves up a centimeter or two higher. He raised the bokken   
back up to a ready position.

  
“No, your feet are on the same line through your   
body.” She tapped the inside of his ankle harshly with her wooden training   
sword. “You’re going to fall over sideways if your feet are this close   
together.”

He inched his foot out a bit. “Better?”

“More.”

“Better?”

“…more.”

“Better?”

“Too much,” Bayushi physically pushed his foot   
into position with her own, “Good, ok that’s better, bend your knee.”

“….uh ....which knee?”

 

000

 

Kuwa felt like all the air had been knocked   
sideways out of her body and she gulped her breath against her hand. She pushed   
herself up, fighting the urge to curl into a ball on the floor. Ten winters and   
she still had to struggle against tears when she ended up on the ground.

  
She stood shakily, hand still gripping her bokken   
and faced her opponent again, a child only slightly larger and older then her.   
Her fingers were sweaty against the hilt. Her grandma was watching.

“Hold,” her grandmother said. “Come over here   
Kuwa, let me show you why you fell over.”

She obediently trotted over and resumed a ready   
position.

Her grandmother leaned over her and nudged her   
back leg straighter, whispering in here ear while she did so. “Your opened is   
weak on the left side, strike him there.” She moved back. “There, all it takes   
is a little footwork.”

 

000

  
It was a warm day in Kyuden Gotei, it seemed   
winter’s hands couldn’t keep a hold on the islands of Spice and Silk. Bayushi   
and Usagi had long thrown aside their heavy outer kimono, white under kimono   
tucked back into their hakama. They stood still for a moment, assessing each   
other. Bayushi saw Usagi’s lip’s move like he was talking himself through every   
step of examination. She let herself smile with her teeth, knowing it would unnerve   
him.

He steeled himself, hands tightening on his bokken   
before rushing her. He brought it up and around, a slashing blow that was aimed   
to score a line from her left hip to her right shoulder. She switched her   
training sword from her right hand to her left before side stepping his strike   
and letting him impale himself on the bokken.

He dropped to his knees wheezing, trying to suck   
air back into his lungs.

“Wrong, try again. You over committed this time,”   
she said, exasperated.

“I don’t-” gasp “-know what-” gasp “-you want   
Bayushi,” He said morosely. Usagi was slowly collapsing to the ground, bokken   
forgotten.

“Stop being so dramatic, just let me come to you   
next time.”

 

000

 

“Akina?” her grandmother said. “Is this true?”

  
“Yes, it’s official.”

“What kanji are you using?”

Kuwa shifted her weight from foot to foot. “These   
ones Grandma,” she said as she took the brush from her grandmother’s hand and   
wrote the kanji for “bright” and “name” in a hand unfamiliar to its signature.

“Kuwa-” her grandmother put her hand on her back   
affectionately “-that is a very distant star to reach.”

  
She took the brush back and swiftly inked   
fifteen strokes down onto the paper. She handed it over to Kuwa, placing her   
wrinkled large-knuckled finger above the kanji for “autumn” and “name.”

“But don’t over commit my dear Akina, it’s best to   
wait for it to come to you instead.”

 


	3. Named

“We named them Shirou and Akina, did I tell you that?” Michio poured more sake into his cup with determination and a crease on his brow before continuing. “Thought that… thought that it would be nice,” he finished lamely.

“You don’t need to name your kids after us to get us to like you idiot.”

Shiro shot Akina a glare that Michio decided meant _be nice_. “I’m flattered Michio, it’s not every day you have someone named after you, and I’m sure Akina will appreciate it once she’s not drunk

Akina pointed at Shiro with the hand holding her cup, the other studying herself against the tatami. “I’m not drunk. You’re drink – drunk – damn.”

“Anyway,” Shiro said mildly, ignoring Akina. “How are your children Michio?”

It wasn’t necessarily appropriate as a samurai to grin like a fool but then again Michio didn’t really care what was appropriate right now, in the company of friends. He dragged a hand through his loose hair and realized that his topknot had fallen out at some point.

“They’re fine. Both healthy. The girl, Akina, is quite a bit bigger than Shirou. I think she’s going to be taller than me!” Michio hid his smile behind his sake cup. “Shirou is a lot cuter than Akina though, don’t tell Kayo I said that.”

“I’m sure they’ll both grow up well. A toast to Akina and Shirou, future samurai,” Shiro said, raising his cup in the air.

Michio held up his as well. “And to Akina and Shiro, my friends and present samurai.”

“You’re _both_ dorks.”


	4. The Ko Rule

The go board that they played on was missing one white stone. Keiji always counted out the stones one at a time before they played. He’d check the soft bag for the stones twice, fingers squishing the fabric into bunches, looking for the last one. He never found it.

His father only every played with a six stone handicap. He said it was because being an Emerald Magistrate meant that sometimes things weren’t clear and equal. That you had to balance the game yourself. Keiji noticed that his father had so much to do that he had to stop midway through games when the number of white stones outnumbered black on the blond wood board.

000

“It is as I’ve said.”

"That’s not a name Keiji, that’s a color. Don’t be so ridiculous and tell me what kanji you’re actually using.”

“It’s my decision.”

000

Keiji reeled backward into the snow. It burst around him and powdered down on his kimono, white against dark green. He brought his smarting hand up to brush his eyes free, feeling his cold, clumsy fingernails scratch against skin.

Ichiro- no, Shinchiro followed him off the porch and into the half meter of snow, snarl on his round face. He pulled him up bodily and shook him. He hadn’t made a move for his wakazashi yet, Keiji surmised that he had forgotten it existed at his hip.

“Don’t ever say that. You little-” He brought his fist back and into Keiji’s face with a sharp snap. “Stop talking like father!”

Keiji fell back, surprised. He sunk deep into the loose whiteness, his face smarting. He felt numb, like the rest of him had receded into his core, leaving a few inches of unresponsive skin in its wake. That lasted until Shinchiro collapsed the walls of snow he had sunk between and pressed them down on his face and into his nose and eyes and mouth and airway.

Keiji managed to curl his toes into the edge of Shinchiro’s obi, it was tied incorrectly he realized in the split second before he pushed him back with all his might, kicking and flailing. He felt his heel sink into soft flesh and heard a cry before his brother was falling back.

There was a sharp call from the house and then large hands were pulling him up off the ground. He stumbled to the porch before he realized that there was a trail of blood behind him in the snow, a line of crimson like a deep thread tied to his dripping lip.

000

“It took you too long to come back, you’re weak.”

“I know. I came here to train, mother. Let’s leave this be.”

000

The wind stole his breath away from his lungs and the rough rocks of the stairs bit into his feet. There was a slight curve to each step, smooth and tilted, the spot where many had placed their foot before. The load on his shoulders pulled at him. He could feel a bright painful line from the outside of his hip across to the inside of his knee. He must be straining something with each step.

He had long given up counting the steps or the birds or the number of stones beside the stairs, instead it was the number of seconds between ragged breaths and shaky exhales. Under his tongue hurt and spit gathered thickly in his cheeks. Keiji didn’t know how many more steps he could take.

“Alright, take a break.”

Freed from the weight, Keiji sat heavily on one of the stairs, head hanging between his knees. The white stone of the stairs was scuffed under his feet and he wondered just how many had passed along this long forgotten stairway.

It could be a thousand or a million or ten. The stone looked new, the indents old. Perhaps the weathering here was in anticipation of thousands of feet all pressing down on one spot and then another and another. They were all his and his feet kept moving and moving and moving.

“Rest’s over Keiji, get up.”

000

“It’s good to see you two.”

“Hey.”

“It’s good to see you Shiro!”


End file.
